More Biking - Still No Triathlon

Hello out there in virtual blog land. The tri season is now well and truly under way. And I am missing it all! Not happy at the moment but with my Headley Court visit next week I am starting to think that maybe I can do at least one triathlon later in the year! Right now, however, it’s all about the bike. I am doing all the club evening time trials and I have a 25 mile TT on Saturday on the E2/25 course near Newmarket. This course is a known fast ride – if the wind is low. If it is windy, the dual carriageway route can be like riding in slow motion. So, again, I will try and break the hour for a 25 mile full on ride.

I have been chatting to Dave Green from RAF Cycling. This guy is very knowledgeable and explained how I was doing things wrong when riding a TT. So, at the evening club TT on Wednesday I did things differently. It was a very windy evening so a hard ride was to come. . . but then a TT is always hard! Previously my warm up was ride 10 miles to the start, get cold after signing on, try and warm up again by riding around with a few sprints thrown in. This time I took the car and warmed up on the turbo. I did 10 – 12 mins increasing the pace spinning. Then I did 3 x 1 min at 26mph with 2 min spin recovery between each 1 min effort. After that all I had to do was ride to the start, about a mile away, and line up with 2 mins until my start time. When I set off, the goal was to ride the first 3 mins at the effort that I had been doing the 1 min efforts whilst warming up on the turbo. This, when compared to my normal starting effort, was far more relaxed. After the 3 mins, I gradually started to ramp up the effort. The wind was very strong on the way back but I felt pretty strong all the way. I finished in 23:40 – only 3 secs off my PB on that course! With most people being far slower on a windy night, I finished second, only 14 secs behind a guy that has ridden 20:50 this year on a faster course. That ride has to be one of my best this year.

So the warm up and race strategy that Dave recommended seems to be perfect! I will replicate this tomorrow at the 25 and see if I can grab another PB – weather permitting.

Best wishes to all the RAF guys racing at the Dambuster Triathlon tomorrow. I have done this race for the last 4 years and I will miss the competition, especially as the RAF will have their own start wave. I look forward to the results!
Train and race well.